


Lend Me Your Heart

by ladymac111



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Coming of Age, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, Trans Pidge | Katie Holt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2019-11-18 18:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18125024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymac111/pseuds/ladymac111
Summary: The universe is a different place in the months after Allura's sacrifice.  The Paladins of Voltron are now left to find their way, to figure out what their futures will hold.  Hunk is beginning his work as a diplomatic caterer aboard the fleet's new flagship; Pidge is finishing her schooling and spending time with her family; Shiro has been promoted to Galaxy Garrison admiralty; Keith is back out in the world with the Blades; and Lance is ... struggling.New love will take root.  Love once lost will be found, but perhaps not the same.  Things considered certain will falter, and the unexpected may yet flourish.





	1. The future that we hold

**Author's Note:**

> You guys ready for some angsty post-canon musings with romance?? Because that's what's in store. True to my own brand there will be a LOT of Hunk/Pidge and I'm venturing into Lance/Allura for the first time, which ought to be fun. There's also a bit of Shiro/Curtis because they deserve like literally anything devoted to what happened between them.
> 
> This is going to be a bumpy ride for our characters -- there will be tears. But it will all come together in the end.
> 
> I do not have a firm outline for this yet, but I have an awful lot of notes, so even though this is probably going to take me a long time to get through, I know where it's going. I appreciate your patience and continued readership through sporadic updates!
> 
> Of course there is a playlist! Enjoy all the feels. https://open.spotify.com/user/129963216/playlist/6RzH7ZjvLx7NEIlLyTBZv6?si=HxA3oChUSTGwfNp-kYFdOA

April 2123, Earth reckoning

  


The video call rings for about eight tenths of a second before Pidge picks up.  “Hey!”

“Hi!  You’re all blurry still.”

She laughs, and the screen freezes, but the sound continues.  “Yeah, subspace relay isn’t the best, but at least we have it.”

“Weren’t you going to magically hack it and get us more bandwidth?”

The screen catches up all at once, and she’s leaning close to the camera and giving me a lopsided grin.  “Aw, sorry, I forgot about that. I was pretty busy this week.”

“Classes are going well?”

“No, I’m between classes, remember?  I’ve just been doing projects with Matt since I got back on my feet.”

“Oh, right, you got your GED last month.”

“I totally did!  I’m officially a high school graduate.”

I can’t help laughing -- it’s an absolutely absurd thing for her to be proud of, after _everything_ we’ve done.  “I’m kind of surprised you’re actually sticking with this school thing.  How long has it been, four months?”

“Are you making fun of me?  It sounds like you’re making fun of me.”

“When I met you, you’d enrolled in the Garrison with no intention of graduating.”

“That was a special circumstance.  I’ll have you know I’ve always been good at school.”

“Doesn’t mean you liked it.  Or stuck with it.”

She sighs and leans back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest.  “Yeah, well. It’s different this time, since they’re letting me go at my own pace.  Oh!” She sits up straight. “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you, I got accepted to MIT!  I’m gonna do that virtual program I was telling you about, I start in the summer term.”

“What!  How is that not what you opened with?”

“My bad, guess I was less excited about getting into a college I knew wouldn’t say no than talking to my best friend in the whole known universe.”

I clutch my chest dramatically.  “Argh, you got me! Right in the heart!”

She barks a laugh.  “Whatever, man. You know it’s true anyway.”

Pidge and I have never, _never_ talked about feelings.  Our relationship has always just been easy, friendly.  I was playing around, but hearing her say so casually that just video chatting with me means more than MIT?  That really does get me right where I live.

And maybe especially so because my months in space have brought into stark focus everything that I left behind in pursuing this career.  And the thing I miss most is Pidge. Our two-ish years doing the Voltron thing really brought us close; I was there for her when disasters happened, and she was there for me when I was scared (which was a lot), and in between it all we hung out together, we worked and played games, we grew, and at the very end she was the one I reached for, and her for me.

We haven’t spoken about that.  The greater circumstances, of course, have been talked to death by everyone.  Allura’s legacy isn’t a silent one. But the way we felt when it happened has always stayed covered up.  I haven’t even peeked at it, not really. To see why that tremendous loss brought Pidge into my arms, to see why it was so hard to let go.

It’s not like I hadn’t hugged her before, obviously.  I hug everyone. Pidge isn’t as touchy as I am but she always let me do it.  But that one? It was different. And I haven’t questioned it. Maybe I’m afraid of the answer.

Why am I even thinking about this right now?  Pidge is talking and I’ve completely missed what about, but there’s a pit in my stomach filled with the hundreds of thousands of light-years between us.

She hesitates, and leans towards the screen.  “Hey, you okay?”

“Fine.”  I say it automatically.  “Sorry, just tired. Lost in thought.”

She tilts her head and gives me a gentle smile.  “Long week, huh?”

“They’ve all been blurring together.”

“I’ve talked enough about myself,” she says.  “Tell me what’s up with you.”

“Just more of the same, really.”

“Sal still giving you shit?”

I chuckle.  “He might be taller than me, but he knows I’m the boss.  He did finally start saying _yes, chef_ , though.”

“I bet that feels good.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”  I grin at her. “It’s pretty thankless most of the time, but I like everyone hopping to it when I put on my in-charge voice.”

She quirks one eyebrow.  “I’d like to hear that sometime.”

I laugh.  “Sure.”

“I mean it!  And maybe I can learn it from you, I could use some help in the being-taken-seriously department.”

“To be honest, you should take lessons from your mom.  She’s on this level of monstrously scary that I can only dream of.  You should _hear_ the things people here are still saying about her!”

She grins.  “Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Like the rumor that she got the yellow onions to grow by telling them that their Russian Jewish ancestors would be _sorely disappointed_ at their refusal to sprout and her people didn’t survive thousands of years so that they could _not_ have onion soup!”

Pidge throws her head back and laughs, and she’s tinny and pixelated and -- oh _fuck_.

I’m in love with her.

The realization is like being bowled over by a wave on the ocean. It sends me tumbling, disoriented, unable to breathe or even see my way back to the surface while my heart threatens to beat out of my chest. Her smile is the whitecap and her laugh is the undertow, dragging me out to sea, and I know, I feel deep in my viscera that we’ll never go back to how we were before.

I can tell immediately that this is among the most significant things that will ever happen to me. Sure I saved the universe, but _I’m in love with Pidge_ and I have no idea how I managed to miss it until now. It’s fundamental. It’s a universal constant. _Hunk loves Pidge_ is inscribed into the initial conditions of this universe, and probably countless others too.

She’s saying something now, and I have no idea what.  I can’t hear over the pounding of my own heart in my ears, and the image on the screen is pixelated, and it freezes when she talks with her hands too much.

I sit back in my chair and tilt the screen forward a bit.  I can barely think, much less keep up with her. She’ll probably slow down in a minute, but until then, all I can do is sit here getting used to my new reality.  Getting used to being _in love_.

I am _so_ fucked.

She seems to have reached the end of whatever she’s saying, and I think it’s time that I actually participated in the conversation again.  She adjusts her t-shirt, smoothing it down over her breasts a little, and I grasp for a topic.

“Say, It’s been four weeks since your surgery now, right? How’s the healing?”

She looks up almost like she’s startled, and I suddenly regret choosing _that_ topic.  It’s an incredibly personal question, though we’ve never been squeamish with each other before, and she’s told me everything I care to hear about it so far. But just now it feels like a _boyfriend_ question, asking after her pelvic surgery.  But before I can take it back she beams and starts talking. “It’s great! Some of the external stitches are dissolving now and it’s all but totally healed. Plus I just got test results back and I’m officially producing my own progesterone now!”

“Hey, congratulations!”

She laughs. “Thanks. I’ll still have to be on synthetic for like another year, they say, but it’s coming along.”

“Genetic therapy is pretty amazing.”

“I know, right? So cool that they can just switch off my Y chromosome like that, turn glands into different glands.”

“Well, it’s not really _just_ , is it? It was a pretty complicated process.”

She shrugs one shoulder.  “I suppose. My part in it was pretty easy, though. Taking care of my plumbing through the surgery recovery was the most difficult part of the whole thing. Well, and getting used to the new configuration.”

I laugh. “I can’t _begin_ to imagine.”

She leans forward, grinning, and the screen glitches out for a second. “I’ll tell you all the gory details if you want.”

“Maybe another time.”

She giggles, and my heart drops down into my belly.

_This is for real, isn’t it? I’m really in love with my best friend._


	2. Say you'll stay with me tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There have been a few changes to my plan since I posted chapter 1! Shiro and Curtis are going to get a few chapters in here, and this is one of them.

June 2123

 

“Good evening, Admiral.”

Takashi huffs an embarrassed laugh as he shrugs out of his uniform jacket -- he’s still not used to his new title, and he finds it really strange when I use it in private like this.  But I love seeing him blush, so I keep doing it.

“At ease, Lieutenant.” He tosses his jacket on the back of the couch, then flops over the arm, only barely missing my knee with his head.

“Hey, careful.”

He blinks up at me, all innocence.  “I know what I’m doing.”

I can’t stop the laugh that snorts out of my nose.  “Yeah right.”

He wrinkles his nose and grins at me, and I bend down to brush a kiss over his lips.  His right hand brushes my shoulder, and I wish that he’d actually caress me with it, but he’s still weird about it.

To be perfectly honest, there’s very little about our relationship that isn’t weird.  Just from the very beginning of it, I’m his ex’s ex. Well, if you can call what Adam and I had ten years ago a relationship -- we were very young and spilling over with lust.  But we didn’t work as a couple, broke up after two and a half weeks, and he rebounded with Takashi, who was at least three times as sexy as me. I like to joke that we’re the same now, since he’s gone all white, but he definitely knows that I think he’s even hotter than before.

One of the things that strikes me as weird about our relationship is that Takashi made the first move.  I didn’t think he’d ever think about me that way, not when we were young, and not now.

The aftermath kind of made everything strange, though.  The _Atlas_ was decommissioned, and this new flagship, the _Geneva_ , came together astonishingly quickly.  Though a lot of the credit for that is thanks to our new alien allies, so I shouldn’t be tremendously surprised.  Large-scale projects get done fast when you have multiple planets contributing. And when you’re cannibalizing all the tech that’s just sitting around after a fricking space war.

I count myself lucky that I was able to get to work with our Balmeran contacts a bit, get to know a few things about the crystal that powers the ship.  Not half as much as our engineering team, but my technical skills have always served me well. And now I’m the magic crystal expert in my department, which is pretty cool.  If only my hippie grandmother was still around to see me now!

Part of what made things weird with Takashi in the beginning was that we were both bridge officers during the Voltron War.  And I felt that _something_ for him then, and I felt like he did too, and technically he was my superior so I was sure as shit not going to do anything, and he takes his job far too seriously to do anything untoward either.

And then everything happened.  During the whirlwind of the _Geneva_ construction we were both mainly ground-based, but I was so busy I barely saw him.  He was around SLC for a while, went off somewhere on something official, then after a few weeks he was back, and he was not only a Junior Admiral but officially in the diplomatic corps, and not scientific ops like me, so that chain of command thing was suddenly a non-issue.

He kissed me the day I was promoted to Lieutenant Senior Grade, on the bridge of the _Geneva_ while it was still in dry-dock, just before the main viewer was installed.  We weren’t supposed to be there, but who would stop us? It was just after sunset, and the stars were coming out in the desert sky, just visible through the massive plexiglas shield.

It was absolute magic.  I hope I never forget that moment.

And ever since then, we’ve been navigating this relationship.  I don’t even really know what to call him, how to describe what he is to me.  _Boyfriend_ sounds ridiculous and juvenile given where we are in life, but I hesitate to say _partner_ because we’ve never really discussed it.  We just … see each other every day. Sometimes just for half an hour before bed, but ever since the _Geneva_ launched we’ve spent every night together, either in his quarters or mine.  To be honest I much prefer his -- very spacious, and a great view. But mine are all right too, and they’re close to the gym.

Takashi shuffles his legs off the arm of the couch and sits up, rolling his shoulders and neck.  “You have time for a workout before dinner?”

He seems a little bit closed-off right now, and I imagine a half hour in the gym will be good for both of us, work off the stress of the day.  But I’m exhausted; I’ve worked three double shifts this week. “I don’t know, I was hoping to just eat something quick and go to bed.”

He turns to look at me, eyebrows raised.  “Don’t tell me you’ve got gamma shift again?”

“No, normal shifts for the next two weeks.  I’m just wiped out.”

He gives me a sneaky smile.  “Exercise is good for sleep.”

He’s impossibly stubborn; I love that about him.  “I don’t think I need help this time.”

He rolls his eyes, but it’s playful.  “All right, I shouldn’t stand in the way of your self-care.”

I lean over and he meets me in the middle for a kiss.  “Stay with me tonight anyway?”

“Yeah, I will.  I’ll shower at my place and then come back here after I eat something.”

“Sounds good.”

“Do you want me to bring you some food?  I can have Hunk wrap something up.”

“No, it’s fine.  I ate a good meal on my last break.”  I stand up and pat his shoulder. “Have good push-ups.”

“It’s cardio today.”

I laugh.  “All right, then, enjoy your run.”

 

  
  
I wake up in the darkness, and I don’t know what time it is, but probably the middle of the night.  It’s always confusing out here, but my automatic lighting hasn’t started its dawn program, so I think my guess is pretty good.

Takashi is sitting up in bed, cross-legged, and it’s not clear if he just got in.  I roll towards him and touch his hip. “Hey.”

He twitches, like he forgot I was here.  “Oh, hi. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s all right.”

He sighs.  “You need your rest.”

“Shush.  I asked you to come.”

He shakes his head, and he’s definitely got something on his mind.

Well, I’m awake now.  I sit up too, facing him.  “What is it?”

He sighs again.  “I don’t know, just … regretting things.”

Oh boy, it’s going to be one of these nights.  “Adam things?”

His lips twist, a grimace of a smile.  “Am I that predictable?”

“At ass o’clock in the morning?  Yeah.” I rest my elbows on my knees and fold my hands in my lap.  “I’m listening.”

He rubs the back of his neck.  “I feel like I was bad at expressing myself with him.  Like it’s my fault that he misunderstood me, that things ended the way they did.”

That he never got closure.  Same song, same refrain. “Mm-hmm.”  I try to sound comforting.

“I never wanted war or danger. I just wanted to explore, you know? I wanted to see the universe.”

He and I are very much alike. “Yeah, I get you.”

“But then Adam acted like he was my dad. _No, you can’t do that, you’re sick_.”

I’m struck, as I sometimes am, by the knowledge that this Takashi isn’t technically the man I knew when we were cadets, that he has a new body. To say nothing of the changes caused by everything he’s been through, clone body or not. I cast about for something to say. 

“Adam was always kind of a stick in the mud.”

Takashi grimaces and looks away, and I instantly regret my insensitive words. This is all still pretty fresh for him, and for all the problems he and Adam had, they loved each other. It makes me wonder how I could ever live up to that. My therapist says I should stop comparing myself to Adam, to Takashi’s memory of Adam that will always be what he wants it to be. But how can I not, when that’s clearly what he’s doing?

“Sorry,” I say softly, and I know Takashi hears me but the tense set of his shoulders doesn’t change. I’m tempted to explain or make excuses, but that’s not helpful and I’d just put my foot farther into my mouth. 

After a few awkwardly silent beats, he sighs. “He really was, sometimes.”

My heart is suddenly fluttering like a bird in the cage of my chest; I try to speak but my tongue is too heavy and uncoordinated. 

Takashi sighs again, and looks back at me with a sad smile. “I’m glad you knew him too. I’m glad you understand.”

My tongue unties all at once.  “Marry me?”

Time freezes as he stares at me.  I can’t breathe, and he’s not moving, and even the perpetual gentle hum of the ship isn’t there.

He exhales, barely a word.  “What?”

“I think we should get married.”  I mean it, but I didn’t exactly mean to say it.  God Jesus, this is going way too fast. “I mean, I would like to get married?  To you.”

He’s blinking now, and his mouth is open like he’s trying to find something to say.  Finally he swallows. “Are you sure you’re awake?”

Which is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.  As I’m gasping with laughter I wonder if I _am_ fully awake, if this is a logical reaction to any of this for me to be having.

But then I look at Takashi, and he’s laughing too, and his eyes are sparkling with starlight and I don’t care, I don’t care about his baggage, and that our relationship is messy and complicated and full of ghosts.  I’m in love with him, and he cares about me, and in the morning I’ll ask him to marry me again and hopefully he’ll realize I’m serious.


End file.
